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HTC announced a new Android smartphone, the "new HTC One," at a press event Tuesday in New York City. The phone runs a new version of HTC's UI overlay, "Android with HTC Sense."

Inside, the phone has a quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM. The device runs Android 4.1.2 (not 4.2 as we originally reported) Jelly Bean, skinned with HTC's Sense 5.0. It has a 4.7-inch 1080p screen.

The new version of Sense "delivers improvements on cameras and sound," said Jason Mackenzie, president of HTC. The new version includes a feature called "BlinkFeed" that threads updates from services of the user's choosing together into one interface. The feed is highly visual, presenting stories as a series of photos augmented by tiny captions.

The phone's body design includes two front-facing Beats Audio-certified stereo speakers, one above the phone's screen and one below. The microphone inside the phone features HDR recording. Sense also includes Sense TV, which allows users to control TVs from their smartphone (HTC did not further specify in the presentation how this is accomplished).

The HTC One uses an “UltraPixel camera,” which HTC says captures 300 percent more light than normal smartphone cameras. HTC emphasized how the new design will help in low-light situations, stating that it helps prevent graininess in low-light photos.

HTC displays a comparison of low-light photos taken by the new HTC One, top, and two other unnamed smartphones along the bottom.

Casey Johnston

Another camera feature, HTC Zoe, captures HD video and images simultaneously to help users capture images in fast-moving situations. HTC did not specify the resolution at which this feature captures images. Zoe can also automatically edit videos into a set of highlights and set the videos to music, as well as compose multiple shots into one photo.

The name of the phone builds on HTC's previous series of flagship phones, including the HTC One X and One S. The phone will come in both black and white, and it has a “zero-gap” seamless aluminum body, wherein the antenna is integrated into the shell of the phone.

The aluminum back of the new HTC One.

In HTC's "largest rollout ever," the phone will launch in 80 countries and with 185 mobile operators and partners around the world in "late March," according to Mike Woodward, HTC's Americas president. In the US, the phone will launch with Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile, and it will be priced at $199 with a two-year contract.

HTC's event is currently in progress. We will update this article as more details become available.

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Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston